Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
by Sanguin19
Summary: Mostly AU...set in and on from S1's "Silent Kill"... Riley had just turned 18 when the aliens invaded, within weeks she was captured and enslaved by the Skitters for over six months until one night she and her group are rescued from their captors and brought to the safety of a school...Join Riley as she tries adapt to her new life and has a surprise reunion with a certain fighter.


**Falling Skies: Horseshoes and Hand grenades **

**Summary: Set in and on from season one's episode "Silent Kill" continues onwards… Riley had just turned 18 when the invasion began but in less than two weeks she was ripped away from her family and had a harness attached to her back, now just six and a half months later a mysterious group of strangers mount a daring mission to rescue the entire group she's in, hours later she awakens to find she has been de-harnessed but this is only the beginning for her… Join Riley as she tries to survive in the new world, adapt to her new life and has a surprise reunion with a certain fighter… Rated T for violence, bad language and some mild injury detail…I suck at summaries lol**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Falling Skies characters…I only own Riley.**

**A/N: Hey guys, sorry I've not written an FS fic for sooooo long but I have really been struggling to figure a good plot out, the idea kind of came to me while watching s1 and s2 re-runs waiting patiently for s3 to get here, I spent a while nurturing the idea and trying to make it feasible, anyhow I hope you guys enjoy it and I look forward to hearing what you think… :-)**

**Chapter One **

**A Midnight Rescue**

Today was the same as any other day…work, work and more work.

Riley been working day in and day out for the past 6 months since the aliens caught her and several others back in Boston, not long after that they were harnessed and each sent to join a Guardian Skitter and their group of harnessed kids, it was surprising how much the Guardians actually cared for the kids in their little groups, it was often like they were taking on the role of a parent rather than a guard and in a way it was a comfort to many of the kids.

Before the invasion came Riley was just your average 18 year old girl who was going to have been starting college roughly a week after the aliens arrived, for the first couple of weeks she and her elder sister survived on the run from the aliens until one night they hit a store that turned out to be an ambush, the last thing she remembered clearly was yelling at her sister to run before she then felt a sharp pain in her back and everything went dark, she never saw her sister again but she still maintained the hope that she's still alive out there somewhere.

_"Come along children, we have more work to do." _The voice of their Guardian Skitter whispered to them via their harnesses, the devices enabled them to hear the Skitters as the aliens had no way to talk like an ordinary human, at first it was strange but after a while it became like a normal everyday thing.

Riley and a couple of others began working on a pile of scrapped metal that other harnessed kids had been throwing down from the roof of the derelict hospital, she picked up a large bundle of assorted scraps and carried them to another location a few meters away under the watchful eyes of a Mech, once she reached the other pile she dropped the bundle and went back to repeat the process which she would be doing for the rest of the day.

As the hours passed them by the children worked and worked without a single break as the day went on, when night fall eventually arrived the two Mechs on site sounded off with their dreadful foghorn like call to alert the skitters that time was up and that the children were to rest for the night ready for tomorrow.

_"Come, children"_ the Guardian Skitter told them _"It is time to sleep, follow me"_ with this the Guardian set off towards the hospital and was followed by the kids in single file order, Riley had slotted in second from last as she walked with the others through the dark and eerie hospital corridors that was littered with abandoned stretchers, trolleys and the occasional wheelchair or two; the corridors were like a maze but they seemed to find their way around easier than you'd first expect.

They passed the children's pediatrics section of the hospital and continued down yet another corridor which was barely lit by moonlight shining through the windows of the rooms they passed; it wasn't long before they finally reached the room that the Guardian Skitter had led them to, the room itself looked like what was left of a ward that had all the beds and other items taken out of it.

_"We will sleep here"_ the Skitter told them as it pointed it's scaled, three-fingered hand to a spot on the floor, one by one the children moved down to the floor all huddled closely to one another as the warmth of sleep came to collect them, Riley had led on the outside of the group nearest to the window using someone's side to rest her head, she eventually sank in to a dreamless cat-nap as she felt the Skitter move so it was sat over the group like a bird sitting over the eggs in its nest _"Sleep…Sleep, my younglings"_ the Skitter whispered to them all in a sort of soothing tone despite the fact it looked like a giant spider crossed with a humanoid lizard.

She briefly opened her eyes looking out at the half moon that filled the sky, although the harness took over most of her being there were often moments when the thoughts in her mind were actually her own just like now, she thought of life before the invasion how she took even the little things for granted never knowing that one day they would be more valuable than gold, she thought about her family and how she and her sister watched the other members get gunned down by Mechs, just the stirring of this memory made her eyes well up with a few tears that slowly fell before she felt a soothing hand stroking through her sandy-blonde locks.

_"There, there child"_ the Skitter whispered to her like it could feel her sadness _"It will all be alright"_ with this Riley closed her eyes again and tried to settle, just moments after the brief warmth of sleep came to collect her something stopped it…

First the Guardian Skitter growled before there was a sickening squelch turning the growl into a shriek of pain, the Guardian struggled with someone or something while the other harnessed kids tried to claw at the attacker, Riley moved from where she was lying to avoid getting squashed by the enormous weight of the Skitter as it threw the attacker around trying to defend itself…

The attacker was a young guy who looked roughly between the ages of 17-19; he had what looked to be dark brown to possibly black hair and stood at around five-ten to five-eleven in height with an average to slender build, Riley had never seen this guy with the group before even within the past few days when two more new kids were added to the group.

While the Skitter was fighting with the young guy two more people entered the room a taller and slightly older guy armed with a cross bow and his accomplice was a younger and slightly smaller woman armed with an assault rifle, Riley failed to notice the pair as she helped the others in trying to stop the young guy from harming the Skitter while the two newcomers pointed their weapons at it, eventually the Skitter was able to overwhelm the guy and tossed him aside which unfortunately left the alien exposed and vulnerable to being shot dead…

The older guy with the crossbow took aim and fired the bolt that had already been loaded ready, the projectile hit the skitter in the chest it wasn't enough to actually kill the creature but it did slow the Skitter down long enough for the young guy to launch another of his attacks again, he began to stab the skitter repeatedly and viciously in the head and mouth areas as the creature tried to fight him off but this time was unsuccessful and eventually succumbed to its attacker, with a brief and feeble hiss the creature was dead just seconds after.

The harnessed kids knelt beside their dead Guardian and tried to wake it up as they poked, prodded and stroked it's scaly-reptile-like skin.

Most of them seemed oblivious to the goings on around them as the young guy who had killed the skitter rushed over to the window and flashed a torch out of it, the older guy made his way over to one of the harnessed boys next to Riley and began to try and get through to him.

"Ben…" he said with a whisper "Ben, I'm taking you home…" he looked around at the others "We're taking all of them" he told the younger blonde woman over his shoulder before she headed out the room to the corridors while two people approached the window outside, they opened the widow as the young woman returned rather quickly.

"We gotta go" she whispered to the others; for some reason her voice sounded familiar to Riley like she'd heard it before but at this moment she couldn't place were from, the older guy gently pulled 'Ben' up to his feet and led him away from the group to the window where the others were waiting to help him out, Riley heard footsteps approach her before feeling a hand gently hook under her arm and pull her up "C'mon sweetie" it was that woman's voice again Riley glanced at her briefly and in that split second saw the calm expression on the woman's face turn to one of slight surprise "R-Riley?" she uttered like she swore she was seeing things.

"Do you know her?" the older guy asked as he came back for one of the others.

"Yeah" the woman replied as she looked at Riley for a few seconds longer before she walked her to the window, it was all partially coming back to Riley now that this woman had to seem familiar to her as she'd known her for just over eighteen years, the woman was Maggie…

Her elder sister.

Maggie helped her over to the window where Riley was then pulled up by the other two guys outside, as she stood on the grass outside of the hospital with the cold air nipping at the exposed skin on her dirt covered hands and face, one by one the rest of the group were brought out of the window before the others climbed out and they began to escort Riley and the others out of there.

"It's gonna be alright, kids" the older guy who had the crossbow told them with a whisper before he looked at one of the other guys who looked to be Asian of some kind "Dai, run ahead and get the truck started…" he told him "We're gonna need to get these kids out of this place as soon as possible."

"You got it, Tom" Dai replied before he broke off from the group and ran ahead to where ever the truck had been left, a few moments after he had disappeared into the darkness a Mech sounded off from the direction they had just came from and the pounding footsteps heading closer to them.

"Shit" the teen boy whispered "We need to get out of here, dad" he reminded Tom "If that Mech sees us, we are dead" he sounded genuinely scared at the possibility of the Mech, Tom however was calmly confident that everything was going to be alright as they moved the kids into the shadows and down the street towards the truck they'd parked a couple of hundred yards away.

It didn't take too long to get to the alley where the truck was parked and Dai waiting at the tail gate of the vehicle ready to help get the kids into the back of it, they loaded them in one by one before Maggie, younger guy and a young black guy climbed in and closed the canopy flaps of the truck, soon after that Riley felt the jolt of the truck as it set off to its next destination before a sudden drowsiness overcame her and her world faded to darkness…

"Hold on, Ri" she heard Maggie whisper to her "It's gonna be alright" this was the last thing she heard for a while…

**A/N: Sorry this chapter was so hastily written, I just had the idea and decide to just go for it…though I soon realized that writing for a harnessed kid isn't all that easy, so I hope you guys don't judge Riley before you get to know the real her lol you can expect her to have a similar if not bigger attitude to/than Maggie's so if you guys want to read more send a review and what you think so far.**

**P.S: I have absolutely no idea if Maggie does or will have any family in the series but in this fic she will have.**

**Thanks for reading,**

**S19**


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